Why has the EU - which professes to be a Union of democracies committed to rule of law values - allowed autocratic regimes to emerge in its midst? Can the EU escape the autocracy trap it has created for itself?

The European Union has long presented itself as a Union of democratic states based on the rule of law and other common democratic values. Recent EU initiatives designed to defend democracy in the Union - like the Democracy Shield - depict the threats as mostly external, stemming from dangers like foreign election interference. However, the greatest threats to democratic values in the EU - and indeed to the functioning of the Union itself - stem not from external threats, but from the rise of autocratic member state governments such as Hungary’s.  The EU’s failure to stem the rise of autocratic member governments poisons the European Union from within. Using the metaphor of the "Upside Down" from the Netflix series Stranger Things, this talk explores the phenomenon of democratic backsliding as a parasitic dimension growing within the very fabric of the Union. This parasitic, upside down dimension draws on the rightside-up, democratic EU’s resources in an effort to dismantle and supplant it.

R. Daniel Kelemen is McCourt Chair at the McCourt School of Public Policy. He is also Professor of Law (by courtesy) at Georgetown Law. Kelemen has published widely on the politics and law of the European Union, comparative politics and law, and comparative public policy. Prior to joining Georgetown University, Kelemen was Professor of Political Science and Law at Rutgers University. He also served as Chair of the Department of Political Science and Director of the Center for European Studies at Rutgers. Prior to Rutgers, Kelemen was Fellow in Politics at Lincoln College, University of Oxford. Kelemen is a Senior Associate (Non-Resident), in the Europe, Russia, and Eurasia Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). He is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and a member of the Executive Committee of the European Union Studies Association. Kelemen comments regularly on EU affairs for European and American media. He was educated at UC Berkeley (A.B. in Sociology) and Stanford (M.A. and Ph.D. in Political Science).